


Maladaptive

by Venus_Belfire



Category: Original Works
Genre: Abuse, Action/Adventure, Alternate Realities, Broken, Comfort, Crime, Crushes, Crying, Dark, Death, Depression, Domestic, Drama, Dreams, Dreams & Nightmares, Dreams and Nightmares, Drugs, Falling In Love, Family, Feels, Female Characters, Female Relationships, Fictional, Flashbacks, Fluff, Friendship, Ghosts, Gore, Harm to Children, Hatred, Homophobia, Hurt, Hurt/Comfort, I don’t even know, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Injury, Kissing, LGBTQ Themes, Loss, Love, Medical, Mental Health Issues, Mental Illness, Mystery, Never again, Original Character(s), Original Works - Freeform, Other, Other Worlds, Poetry, Reccomend some good tags, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Short Stories, Short Story, Slow Build, Soulmates, Suicide, Supernatural Elements, Teenagers, Tragedy, Trauma, Tumblr, but I hated that, can I hire someone else to tag my stuff, fuck tags, haha no I’m not, i should be able to just mass tag, i was sleep deprived when i wrote this, im sorry, just testing to see if they work, multidimentional, no but seriously I hate them, okay done bye, prompt, realms, tbh I still am
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-18
Updated: 2018-09-08
Packaged: 2019-03-21 00:55:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13729695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Venus_Belfire/pseuds/Venus_Belfire
Summary: A visually descriptive mentally challenging story set in Japan, a mystery gradually uncovered and pieced together interactively by the reader. The protagonist travels into a mental multi-dimensional universe in the dark hours of the night becoming unable to to trust anyone with the secrets it holds; a boy who draws fragments of worlds into his atmosphere but is always that bit out of reach.





	1. If this is just a dream

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally just a one shot from a prompt but I slowly began adding more before decided to make it a multi-part series hopefully to eventually become a complete work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So many spelling mistakes I know, however I write in one go and choose not to edit because I usually end up deleting everything. Chapter 2 is out now.
> 
> Update: I have gone through and edited it - some parts have been cut or changed and I have included entirely new paragraphs. I think though I am still critical of my work it has improved a lot from where this story started. So if this is your first time or if you have read it before I would be grateful if you did read it.
> 
> Song to listen to while reading if you choose to do so: once upon a December (piano version)

Prompt via tumblr: “even if this is a dream, this is where I choose to be.”

Some days are easier than others, they glide by like brushing dust away. Other days, I want to sleep and that’s all I want to do. There’s days where moving feels like climbing a cliff; taking the energy to think is too much. And I know when it gets too real, I cut off the conversation like breaking twigs beneath my feet. And that’s all I want to do. In those days I will think of what benefit there is to get up, and every time I did the list got shorter. The small things that would get me out of bed didn’t make me happy anymore and I found myself under the weight of the sheets more days than not. I frequently search through fragments of my life, to find the will to live through it. If I could, I would find my mental energy myself. I imagine it as a child. Myself as a child, seeing playing in sand something that could keep me going for hours and the idea of naps was just missing the excitement in the day. They usually look confused when I explain my issue, but when I explain to them they usually loose interest. 

And that’s what it is like; trying to argue with a child and not even understanding it yourself. It seems so stupid, at some point something’s got to break. People tell me something’s got to change, but I know it won’t. In those points there’s no point in people trying with me, and it’s a good reason to stop. Many people describe it as feeling half alive, but to be honest I don’t feel alive. Im watching and going through the motions from the outside. Like being sat in the snow on Christmas Day and watching everyone inside and being too cold to stand and walk in. At this point, I don’t know what to do. I could start eating healthier or going to the gym. I could get a job and distract myself. I could invite my friends out. It usually works, for small flickers of hope but by the end of the night I find myself feeling sadder than before. I feel like I’m in a restless night, or a sleep with no dreams. What’s the point in sleeping at this point, when sleep still feels restless and I still feel numb when I wake up. What’s the point in sleeping with no dreams. These thoughts had been tumbling through my head every time I closed my eyes, even just for a deep breathe. Winter drew a frost over the land in the nights, and the bed became colder every night. I would hold my knees close to my chest, becoming a small ball in masses of blanket. 

In the blisses of dreams, figures (more like mist that would twirl into shapes resembling people) would dance across the back of my lids, coasting me to stay with them forever, things I barely remember when I wake up. Someone holds me in their arms and hums calming melody’s that always slip my memory. 

That’s where he lives, among my sheets and behind my lids. And there he felt closer than anyone else: he was safe where I left him at dawn, and he was mine if I could just touch him. I wanted to meet him, more than I wanted to wake up. That’s what this story is all about.

Sometimes in the days I will close my eyes and tilt my head back, to see if I can get a glimpse of him. When I fell asleep I opened my eyes to a dark sky, sun burning my eyes. I was about to put my hand up to block the light before something else did. His face appeared as he leaned over me, confusion shaping it. He was chewing on some strawberry laces or something as the end of one hung out of his mouth - one of the few things I could take in before he grabbed my arm and pulled me to my feet. Just a stranger in what I thought would be another passing dream.

But no. I would close my eyes in attempt to get a glimpse of his hair turning a corner. To see him fall back into a bed of flowers - once in fresh bloom but now crumbled under his weight like mercury fragments. Blissfullness cascading across them as he exhaled - and sunlight would tenderly caress his skin. In rooms originally with exposed concrete floors and deep red walls he sat on a stool; he would watch as I began building and painting the walls into the scene of him on the wilting flowers; tilting his head back and watching each stroke, following it with his eyes behind him. The ground began to seep in water, a thin layer across the concrete which, when hit with light would reflect the rippling onto him and the walls. 

His eyes met mine. 

Once, when he was sat in a small bedroom littered with blankets and paper, he sat on a the end of his bed igniting a lighter and releasing it while watching the fire with a meddlesome ambience. I wondered how it would be, as I now imagine he had been doing too, what is would have been like if he submerged the whole room in a calescent blaze. And as I did the room flickered between his inquisitive gaze on the lighter to delusions of smoke clouds spreading along the ceiling; flames galavanting, encircling his ankles and reaching to pull him in. He took little notice to these flames but gazed up and around the room - reaching out to touch it.

For many nights I followed him blindly into whatever atmosphere he wanted to hold me in, or wake in the middle of flickering moments.

He once sat in an empty night cafe, still light in dim neon lights like a faint memory, eating soup with a spoon. I sat nearly but not quite opposite him and watched him as he ate it, rambling on about something i couldn’t hear while I rested my head on my hand - unable to not smile in amusement. He was on the booth side of the table and my back was to the rest of the room, but every so often he would steal glances at something over my shoulder and I had begun to wonder what. Even though I hadn’t said anything his eyes met mine again with slight suprise before laughing and shaking his head and taking another spoonful.

When he walked through a town, small and old fashioned, it was so empty yet somehow didn’t seem abandoned. The market stands still filled with fruit and the rare vintage car lined the side walk. He looked right at me, pulling a camera from around his neck and held it to his eyes - snapping a photo. I saw his little face peep over it when he was done, before laying it down on his lap and looking at whatever photo he had taken and smiled to himself. He pulled it back over his head and with a seemingly new burst of energy sprung to his feet. He ran and pulled the glass doors open and began running outside into a snowy landscape and I watched as his hair soon glistening with flakes. I ignored the fact he still wore shorts and the urge to wrap his warm but instead chased after him. Every few seconds he would spin in place to check if I was still following him waving his arm and urging me to hurry up - a dynamic grin holding my attention. He was laughing - but he was too far ahead for me to hear him. 

I woke up too soon, and suddenly felt all the life drain out of me. I was back in this world - and I was without him. I assume I had disappeared from his, and he was now standing alone in the snow.

One that took my by suprise is when I found his sat behind the counter of a small gas station store, his cap casting a shadow over his face and he pulled some mints out of his hoodie pocket, popping them in his mouth. He tapped the table seemingly so bored he was going out of his mind, nothing to be seen outside the window as the world had been draped in the blackness of night. Before loosing his temper and sweeping everything on the desk off with one swoop of his arm and I watched as time seemed to slow and it was falling to the tiled ground and turned into soft white feathers. And the cracks in the tiles began to grow small green buds, vines pulling frames into the walls - but he didn’t even seem to notice - proceeding to tap his tune out.

He only stayed for a handful of seconds that night.

My longing began to crumble. In the haze of my deception it all began to shake and I would wake with a start, and when I did see him he looked lost, thrashing underwater in attempt to escape, sometimes running or searching or watching as my dreams became an eclipse and he was submerged into an abyss. After all, I was a mere human living in a simple and messy world trying to hold onto him. It was foolish of me to think I could have him. My brain hasn’t stopped spinning since he filled it with dancing and smoke and music, and the idea he might do it again in stuck. I felt blinded and that h lifted me and the ribbons tying me down slipped away, I was soaring. 

I would orbit my life around him if I could.

Today, like every on leading up to it, I woke up alone again. There is so much shit people say, all I want is to be taken from this place. The light of streetlights pouring through my curtains in a dim, dull glow. In the first times, I would wait through the day in hopes to see him again. And my numbness became permanent. There would be moments, moments I’m ashamed off, where the depression was replaced by anger. I was usually alone; for better or for worse I don’t know. I would feeling broiling bubbling deep in my chest, sweat forming droplets over my skin and my eyes welling up but I wouldn’t even take notice. I would yell so desperately my throat would feel raw after, in such wet anger I could feel the salt from my tears on my hands - until my shouting weakened down to sobbing, gasping breathes between and asking something out in the world why. Why would he leave me now?

As the days passed the sobbing became whining, like a child begging and my knees buckled and I would squeeze my eyes so tightly shut that I wondered whether to bother ever opening them until sleep would drift me away. My throat was sore and pulsing, my eyes swollen and skin broken from my nails digging into my hands most nights as I went to sleep but other nights I wasn’t sleeping anymore. A withdrawal to the only thing keeping me alive. My beloved prince, oh he’s far away. He’s far far away from me. He glides in the silk walls between worlds, unravelling and retrying the complex knots of reality. It was just a dream, this is my life. 

Even if this Is a dream, I would do the same mistake again, this is where I choose to be.


	2. A sleep without dreams

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song to listen to while reading if you choose: You There by Aquilo, Bird by Billie Marten and Berlin by RY X.

Each night, as the sun disappears behind the cities landscape and paints the sky in soft hues of colour, he comes again. How long he will stay is something only he knows. Some nights I see him for what feels like an hour, and others I will only see him for a glance. Sometimes, the ideas cross my mind - what it is like to go to sleep and never wake up. In the nights I will sit alone in my room and watch shapes pass over my walls as cars pass, blocking the light. Each one of them have places to go. Home to a family and share a hot meal around the table, to a lover and cuddle close on the sofa to keep warm, to an event in the darkness of the evenings. But maybe, just maybe some of them are like me. Driving home along the busy roads and empty streets to an empty house. They will pull into the driveway to a house with all the lights off, and only the rustling of trees to fill the air. They will unlock the door and step into a dark doorway and drop their bags without much thought and flip the light switch. And inside everything will be exactly as they left it. They microwave some leftovers from the night before because a portion size for two was too much for them and eat it at an empty table, staring at a wall with nothing on it except holes where frames had once been. Multiple times they have thought what may have once hung there from families that had previously lived there. Ornaments from travels that still bring smiles to their faces, photos from people who squeezed them so tight they couldn’t breathe. Anything. I, in the more recent years of my life, have been that person. However, in the past months during my drives home I have been trying not to anticipate someone being there to meet me, and I dread our departure when the nights meet days. Both of which, are thing I have little (if any) control over. The golden streaks of sunlight to most people symbolise hope, light, innocence and warmth. But the only times I ever feel warm is when the moon rises in the sky and I watch through an old telescope through my curtains. Sometimes, the wind from the north will blow in snow and redesign the town in a sparkling mist. In those nights it blows in a world of dreams, luring me into the moonlight. It use to strike me curious, and sometimes still does. How such a boy, alone between the fragments of broken realms, came to be with me. Bits of homes that bring themselves to him. I, myself discovered during nights when my dreams where empty that I had become such broken homes that seeked him out. 

He was like Pluto- always so alone with only the worlds I would develop and create for him or whichever one I found him in. Casted away from where the stars where touchable. But I felt they where reaching out to him from the Stars; that the light they luminated the world with was there for him. But that light only ever touched one side of his world and one side of himself - the other side casted into shadow.

When he wasn’t here, returning to my home like a sailor lost at sea, my days and nights began to merge into one dreamlike state. I was been driving home after many nights of lonesomeness when I found my vision blurry and eyes weary. I would ponder over which of these lives, day or night, was becoming my own reality. Reality has become an opinion of perception and if I could choose this reality I drive through now would not win. I could hear the waves crashing against the shores, until I realised I was nowhere near the sea, and what I heard was my own blood pumping through my veins. I soon latched my attention onto the sound of the engine instead. Maybe that was a mistake. Once before my prince left - I had woken up in the hallway of a train. 

He had begun climbing out of the hallway of a train and instead dragging himself along the side, using any edge to pull himself up. He sat on the top of the old train, as the sky dazzled with flushes of colour, and contrasted with golden clouds. I could see how the wind pulled through his hair and dragged at the folds in his jumper. He pulled his knees close to his chest and held his arms out as if pretending he was flying - he too was only accompanied by the chugging sound of the engine. I couldn’t help but hope maybe he knew one day I would be here thinking of him. 

My lungs filled with a desire to escape the fear that maybe I would one day would not be a part of either reality, in fear of being awake. Such thoughts made me feel so awake with nothing to hind behind in the rawness of existence. I would hold the wheel so tight and try and force myself to stop thinking. But my thoughts where the only other thing in the silence. My thoughts where the only other thing that was willing to accompany me.

In each night I would wake up in the movement of his world, and each night I felt myself longing further and further to be able to hold onto it when I felt myself waking. When he sat by the ocean, he wore knee lengths shorts but an oversized jumper he had pulled over his arms to keep warm. The clouds (despite me not feeling like it was sunset) were lined with a pink glow and as the water could come in - each time close to touching his bare feet - seemed to glow a soft turquoise and skimmed along the perimeters of the unscathed sand. He seemed sad and lost in though, possibly memory. And, though I didn’t know what those memories were or where my prince had come from, I longed to ask him. And step into the water myself. 

Or when he sat at the base of a stand holding a record player in a store with dusty records lining every bookshelf, some scattered around him and learn back against it he laughed and picked another up, switching it with the one that had just ended. Despite not recognizing the music I found myself liking it and wanted to find it. However when I was searching the lyrics during my waking hours I came back empty handed. 

I was met by sudden crashing and my blurry vision breaking. Lights and sound blasting deafening in my ears and like an echo in the distance I heard my own screams. I remember falling in and out of consciousness like a broken light. In the back of an ambulance and the yelling of nurses felt familiar yet distant, a monetary existence causing me to squint and try to make clear of everything around me, but blinks seemed to pass minutes and I barely even noticed I was coughing until I felt the taste of metal in my throat. It was then I finally saw him again, after the long weeks I had lost count of. Wandering like a lost child with glints of curiousity behind his eyes, and he would dip his hands into the smooth stream of molten obsidian, dripping off his finger tips and echoing lustrous iridescence. Until the blackness began to crawl up his skin and washed him away. 

It engulfed the whole world. 

In the void a rhythmic beeping sound filled the emptiness. I could feel myself beginning to run, turning as I did so in search for something or someone. Reaching my hands out in front of me in attempt to touch something solid. I eventually fell into water, as black as anything else around me. The beeping became muffled and I was thrashing, unable to find a way out until I woke with a start. 

However, when I woke, he wasn’t there.


	3. Rusted Clockwork

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As much as a prisoner as I may be now, I can’t see much appeal in freedom. I wonder if I have ever been free.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Songs to listen to while listening if you choose to do so: the Puritan by this will destroy you, you’r in my head by moow, moonlight shore by Brian Crain.
> 
> Trigger warning ⚠️

Everyday I wake up, and while I may still seem asleep I’m very much awake. Unable to move, small and frozen yet sweat forms grazing just above my skin. And most nights I go to sleep. I’ve kept myself going. Just enough food and just enough water - I’m still here aren’t I? For that I think I did enough having taken so much effort to do so. And yet they ridicule me for what has made me hold on.

They will sit me in a small room, they will play classical soft music, delicate fingers tapping at shiny keys and the untouched surface of the piano gently decorated in celebratory flower arrangements; still in fresh bloom. And their bright eyes would smile at me encouragingly, - encouraging me to kill you.

What they didn’t understand is I was willing to die. I would die for my moonwalker, if it only gave me the chance to finally touch his skin or brush his messy hair from him eyes so I could see him clearer. To take in the yellow freckles that scattered the tops of his cheeks and across his monolids. I would give myself willingly and in tender strokes. But these worlds he lived in where striking, dynamic, infatuating. All these lost stories where beautiful. And they all deserved to burn.

By contrast this place was as dull as drying paint, but even without my mystical worlds to compare I think that observation would still stand. Some people like myself where silent, others chattered nonsense among themselves. Those who had outbreaks of shouting where quickly hurried out to prevent others following their lead. On my first day I had found the art station somewhere of somewhat comfort - because it was the closest I could get to being back in such worlds. My hands would pull the chalks from their pots as a volounteer took the seat next to mine. They had been here as long as I had and had never once seemed at ease with me but still try and seem friendly by asking me questions.

Nonetheless she kept speaking to me. Asking simple questions and when I didn’t reply she would ramble on a response of her own. I believe the first thing I made was a recreation of what I had seen the first time I woke up. A road with brick buildings lining my peripheral vision and the smoke blurring them away. The chalks themselves were not very good but I made them work as best I could in attempt to portray the golden light streetlights pulled through the fog. 

The colour ended up more peach than gold, and resembled the colour the walls in the room I was in had been painted. A strange orange I actually didn’t mind. They had tried to make this room seem less daunting than some of the others and it resembled an old nursery or the play area for children in hospital waiting rooms. Where children would wait to see the nice doctor, and their parents forced smiled would age their face further, and their fingernails would dig into their seats. Some people took more interest in outside the room though, and moved the childsafe blinds to look out the large windows. The view of outside these walls where not of much interest to me. I had been there before , in the real world; and I had chosen to isolate myself from it before. 

Even if now I was more of a prisoner than anything else, eating distasteful food and following monitored routers. Out of contact from everything beyond these guarded walls - I couldn’t see the appeal of freedom. I wonder if I have ever been free.

When the chalks where put back in place by the voulenteer I would stare at the back of my hands, using one finger to trace along the scars on the other. Some where short and slim - you probably wouldn’t notice it unless you where looking for them. Others where deeper, longer and brighter against my skin tone. Those are the ones that caught attention. And they where the chosen subject of discussion in my next session. 

I could hear her watch ticking, a second at a time. Yet minute by minute i felt like I was wasting away, pouring my insides out until I was as hollow as the dead trees I had seen too often. In my thoughts, those who are dying have more time in each second, as it draws out in passing sand. I can’t help but find that the true downside to death. When she stood her metal chair scaped against the floor and I was placed into the same familiar room I had seen everyday for however long I had been here.

The ticking is what really got me, it made a rhythm which made my fingers twitch, my toes curl and my teeth to bare harder pressure on my lips. I had avoided music for so long and the repetitiveness of this endless ticking reminded me of how tightly my fists would hold my hair, how often my fingers would bleed from snapping nails and how many nights I would sit in the orange glow of light in a windowless bathroom trying to drown out the pain. No. I hated music. 

 

That repetitive ticking drew goosebumps over my skin. I hated the melody that was held on tongue, the way her teeth would grind away against each other. I hated the how often she would replay her favorite songs on my speakers and how often she would hum their calming tunes again while studying. I hate how rain makes such a soft background noise and would fall like salty tears. I hated how long each movement of the metal hands on her wrists would hold me in each sound they made.

 

The lady in the white coat would somehow seem to take something from my pause and scribbled on her note board - slightly off putting towards the back of my thoughts. Her coat was loose against her slim and wirey figure with long thin fingers usually grasped around her pen firmly - probably protocol Incase I made a grab for it. But beyond her fingers she seemed relatively at ease and calm. Her kinky hair was always pulled tightly into a bun on top of her head and the wrinkles around her eyes deepened as she smiled at me just as she did at the start and end of every session. As expected, her clipboard was sat on the table in front of her when I was led into the white room. Her smile always seemed genuine from just looking but I had always suspected that was just for show.

 

She welcomed me as she always had, addressing me formally by my full name and waved the men out of the room to stand outside. She prompted me to sit in the metal chair already pulled out to sit at it’s matching metal table. I, as usual, did not follow instruction. “Do you want to tell me what happened to your hands?” I knew she had suspicions and casted my gaze down to them. I didn’t move anything but my eyes. After a few seconds when she was sure I wasn’t planning on saying anything she proceeded. “Your friend I am told had similar scars.” Again I said nothing. She quickly lost hope that this session would be much different from the others just because I chose to sit and signaled to the camera in the corner of the room. And I let them place their hands firmly on my shoulders and lead my forcefully away down the stark bright halls.

Voices echoed down the halls as my heart raced, thundering in its subterranean cave. It was a relatively small room with several beds lining both sides with a row down the middle. There where 8 in total and I sat at mine, the furthest from the door on the left hand side. Most the other patients where already there sat on their beds. The two girls across from mine had gotten to know each other but frankly it disturbed me what they talked loudly about. As night fell I felt a sigh of relief. He hadn’t visited me since I had gotten here - or even since the night of the crash. I have chosen to blame the uncomfortable hospital beds or my unsettled stomach from the food. Both of which I knew were untrue.

 

Instead the thought of sleep was disappointing and I struggled to do so. I couldn’t begin imagining what could be there for my imagination had run dry and instead got hung up in other thoughts. My fingers drew against the large lifted scar across the side of my head. Most of the crash was just a blur of white noise and instead just have begun building a memory from reports of what happened such as the stranger pulling me out the car due to the flaming engine. Such as how there had been a woman and her son in the car across from me which suddenly hit their breaks right before the impact. Such as how the mother lost all sense from the waist down.

 

All this memories where fake. But building and manipulating memories was easy. I don’t remember exactly how I got the handprint mark just above my armpit - but I like to think it had been his. See that’s the issue - I know morning will come and it is always closer than I wish it could be. But till then I close my eyes and lose myself in the night. I try to pretend i can’t feel your absense behind my eyes. And yet I refuse to let even the smallest details slip my mind, because it’s like forgetting the lyrics to your favourite song. Maybe I do miss him. 

Maybe I just miss what it felt like to be loved by him.


	4. Crumbling petals

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> sometimes the sun isn’t so lonely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Songs to listen to while reading if you choose to do so:
> 
> Clint Mansell -Together we will live forever  
> Sleeping at last -Neptune instrumental  
> Sleeping at last -Jupiter instrumental  
> 

In my experience life has been just looking for reasons to live, and when you stack all those reasons into one person there becomes an unbalance. But I wouldn’t say my life was in search of balance right now. Between the stark white halls and constant security she had begun telling my to close my eyes - to forget where I am and tell me about something beautiful. Of course I slowly spilled more and more over the realms in my dreams, getting lost in the details. I refused to say much about him, but spent so long on the sunlight between buildings. And the doctor asked me to talk more about that specific thing. It felt silly at first, what more could be said about it? But like melted gold dripping small things came to mind. Being a child sat in the grass back garden, summer holidays with friends. Aiko. I guess that’s what I needed right now.

I guess what I need is to find the light between building and look up to the sky, letting the sunlight stream onto my face and warm my skin. I guess that is as close to her as I will get. And while maybe the wind can’t quite mimic the waves of electricity on my skin when her lips were close enough to feel every exhale, maybe it will be enough.

I guess since I had chosen to live in the night I had forgotten how the sunlight felt against bare skin, and how it would make everything glow in golden hues. I had long forgotten how the sunlight would caress her skin.

I’ll admit I had become devoted to the isolation, but even now - I wonder how many more times I will look for her face among the strangers in this hospital until the realisation hits. Until I realise how alone I truly am. 

Mornings didn’t use to be so bad, when she would wave from the corner of my street as I sat on my doorstep, finding the right song to play. We would board the buses and always hope to get the ones with tables - Aiko to be able to do extra school work and myself for extra sleep. I guess part of the reason I never minded sharing my earphones with her was because it gave me an reason to sit that bit closer - for the excuse our shoulders where grazing each other’s was to prevent them tugging out. And when her fingers would sweep your hair behind your ear I couldn’t help but to feel distracted for just a second, and I couldn’t tell her my chest was burning like stars.

Her hands would move swiftly to create shapes in the corners of her school work - only to quickly rub them out before her parents would see. The same hands that just a few days before as we sat in the coloured lights of my bedroom and among the messy poster, watching old sci-fi on my old small and boxy tv whith her head on my lap and my fingers untangling her hair, would subconsciously stroke my thigh.

It was early, and the sun was only just turning the sky from purple to pinks and yellows. She was right handed, but wrote with her left if only to shield the raising sun from my eyes. I think it was moments like that which made me wonder- I was thinking too much into it. 

Even on the rare times we where permitted to sleep at each other’s houses it made mornings that bit less daunting. Aiko loved the mornings. I never truly understood that but she made me love them. She left her sheer white curtains open so that she could always wake up with the daylight and made me groan in frustration because of how her legs would rub against mine under the soft white duvets. Our hands would reach up and tenderly touch each other’s, dark silhouettes against the white lights. Mornings where filled with her calm happy music, low rumbling of rain and the smell of her putting my toast in the frying pan and watching her wrap their rice in nori, grinning at me as I swung my legs on top of her counter. I loved watching her precisely cutting the banana so all the slices where the same size and placed the same distance apart on my toast. She was a perfectionist, and I loved that.

My house wasn’t all white and sunny, but you could see the train passing overhead from my window. The open roads would fill with cars rushing to or from, and we would sit and watch as I sipped on black coffee: the clouds, like ink spills over cobalt tumbled across the sky . We weren’t complicated, different yes but never complicated. Could you imagine the city lights behind that train track, or the auburn halo that traces the lining of her hair as she turned to look at me; wind sweeping the black hair across parts of her face. In the distance you would see trees and mountains, dissolved into thickening mists. Amber hinted behind their corners. Her hands buried into the pockets of her denim jacket. The pavement between tall white houses had been dyed shades of lilac and sapphire. She would run ahead and call back to me in a loud whisper to hurry up before our parents would realise we where gone, subdued by the thick folds of muffling vapours.

Of course, moments of that sort where rare. As to catch her outside of school or during our walks to and from before we went separate ways was near impossible. I frequently lost hope in trying to catch her while she slipped around another corner or crumbling under the weight of books. Even when I tried stopping in at her house I could barely open the bedroom door as her floor had become so littered in blankets, papers and pens. I could never quite reach her. I never fully opened that door and she never even noticed me try.

Nevertheless, I held onto the moments we had. When she laughed and told me that I was one of the only things that could make her forget about her school work in the beginning, to distract her from it in small doses. I never knew whether she liked me for that or not - but that eventually faded away. 

“Your stitches will be taken out soon.” I knew what the doctor was referring to. The line along the side of my head which had been cause for my hair being shaved and had become habit to run my fingers over frequently. When I had been dismissed from the hospital she had begun giving me small updates of what was healing well- I assume to try and comfort me and suggest to me I was physically getting better. This didn’t bring much comfort, but once, throughout the summer I had lightened and dyed my hair but as august drew to an end the school forced me to cut it to my chin where the dye started. I felt foolish and embarrassed but she told me she liked it, and that she could see my face better. Admittedly that also meant she probably saw the blood rush to my cheeks.

For the first time in weeks I finally felt trapped, less so from the doors out of this place but more so by my own obsession, enslavement. 

Maybe what truly hurt is when I told her I knew something was wrong and she would smile, look me in the eye and stroke the hair behind my ears and tell you she fine. Only a few days passed when I asked again, and her back was to me hunched over her desk which had organised rows of work. Her head slightly turned while I spoke. I swore not to leave until she talked to me. She simply stated she was stressed with school that’s all, but held both my hands in her own swinging them slightly. She did drop flowers to mine a few hours later, pink roses from a near shop. I brought them here.

As beautiful as sunlight was, it cast shadows. I hated how under these nights for so long I drowned it all out to the sound of screaming. Not that anyone would ever hear or know because they are far. She is far, far away from me. I hate how in these three years I stopped being the person she loved. I hate remembering how tightly I would close my eyes, 'cause then I wouldn’t see. I wouldn’t focus on the fact I couldn’t feel her love when you held me anymore. That’s the first time I learned to hate the morning, because when I woke up I always knew that’s when I lost the fight. And that nights where made for saying things that you can’t stand to see in the sunlight - to reimagine the touch of someone who left before you woke up. No; I lost that fight.

The flowers she gave me are dried and crumbling under the weight of dust over the letters we use to send back and forth - I feared to reopen them incase the words in them had somehow changed; or worse stayed the same. But still I refuse to discard the flowers so quickly. Some of the petals never opened quite fully, so I'm staying awake. I'll never see it before they finally dissipate if I sleep now.

Maybe, just for these nights while I wait, I won’t be quite so lonely. Maybe I miss when he was just in my head.


	5. Empty Spaces

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stage 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ⚠️ Trigger warning
> 
> Songs to listen to while reading if you choose to do so:  
> Empathy by Alicks  
> It’s ok, you’re okay - Bonjr
> 
> This did take an incredibly long time for me to think about how I wanted to approach the next part so I apologize and I am still not satisfied with the result to adjustments may be made in the future. I don’t know if you will like it but I hope so? You can leave comments if you like - they are actually really appreciated.

“There are five stages of grief: they look different on all of us.”

The doctor came off in shades of blue, chilling and in constant movement - just as the clouds in the sky or the the ripples in a puddle. She smiled on the brief lines I slipped, seeming to relax in her chair. 

When we walked out with our arms loosely locked we saw those girls from the younger year holding and swinging their hands - we became uncertain as to whether they where just friends or dating. I asked if it was weird - “it’s weird right?” And Aiko said no. She said either way it’s probably better we keep our distance from them. I didn’t respond, but I did let go of her arm.

“Grief is a complicated and very powerful emotion and unfortunately it’s very likely that at some point in your life... you’ll go through it.” The doctor stated in a soft yet clear voice. As much as she offered me comfort I knew she still felt confused - as to why it had effected me so much. But there are moments that are to be kept to yourself. These moments where ours, nobody else’s.

Stage 1: denial

In the fields of flowers, flaming petals among green leaves I would wait. Lying on my side watching the path for their arrival staying completely still like my movements would disturb the scene. I didn’t dare breathe. I was always a day dreamer, stopping and starting, floating between plains. The morning comes with blushes overspread, Hour follows hour one step behind another, balancing on a rod between earth and sky. The lengthening shades descend just out of my touch so that I, a sleeping child could sleep awhile longer.

As much as the media presents life as waves of emotions, overwhelming and strong, spitting like thunder in a tempest - they don’t talk much about grief. I believe grief grows where nothing else will, like poppies in an abandoned field. In the start it was calm, protective but soft. Hidden mysterious and unknown. A barrier between itself and the outside world. 

Her bones sit under the weight of the earth; the spaces inside her bones will sprout vines, twisting between her lungs and pulling themselves to the surface. And there, children will pick the flowers and make flower chains, placing them as crowns on their head and running between trees. All of her other gifts to me endearing; And while within her darkened chasm I sleep, The tiredness behind my eyes dissipates and under constant vigils lasted for hours. The doctors voice cut like a knife through my thoughts.

“Is it true you where the only one she spoke to in the months before?” 

Our fingers gently brushing together, slightly raising to reach for the others hand before pulling back. 

“Do you ever think that maybe it’s not worth bothering?” Aiko asked, as if it was a casual question that had been resting off the tip of her tongue. I asked her what she meant. “I mean it’s just, humanity has spent all its years in hunt of what it means to be human - where we are going. And it seems now we have stopped, living like a stop motion picture. I don’t want to be just an office worker to get a job done. I want to leave some sort of effect in the skin of the earth.” She laughed, a half hearted laugh. She apologized for boring me, admitting she bored herself sometimes. She pushed herself up from the tall window she was leaning on, in the center of our school sports hall. She wandered to where I was, facing me. We had left all the lights turned off besides a few in the center of the room, like spotlights of auburn light. The school was still open but would close in just a few minutes - and the library had but a handful of students left. That’s where we should have been. 

Though it was dim - I had never felt more awake. I pulled her close and pressed my lips lightly to hers; The distant sound of where my earphones on full volume whispered music, the song drawing the an end. Like fireworks, bursts and sparks in explosive collisions before cascading back down to earth in flickers of distant light. Each in its silent chamber sank to rest I fed the fire with a fountain of bitterness. Among the mountains of human building, layering over the past are bodies that had once been set alight, brightening paths and burning away. But in that moment I understood, that I would rather set myself on fire to keep her warm than to let her fade away.

What they say about love, that time stops, and that is undoubtedly true. What they don't tell you is that when it starts again, it moves twice as fast to catch up, to find a balance on the scale.

That’s when the threads began to pull apart, opening up empty spaces of vast distance between us. It didn’t matter where we were it was a haunting shadow, dark-robed night comes hovering from above, on trains while you would gaze out windows I would notice the pen marks scattering your hands from where you had stabbed your palms with it in concentration.

Her perfume still burns in my throat.

Red burns with Passions and ambitions, often used to express love. Thoughts come from the head rather than the heart. Her skin quickly lost it’s flushed hue.

It was unbearable: every second worst than the last. I don’t know what the spaces between seconds are called - but she lives and thrives in my thoughts in those intervals. She’s out of her head and I’m loosing my mind. There is no sight curls past the movement behind my eyes, my spirit suffers in a living tomb.

“Moonwalker” I stated to the doctor, tapping against the metal table.

“Would you like to tell me why?”

“I take it the moon is referring to the fact his visits are at night?” I said nothing and left my face expressionless. This almost brought offense - how simple her idea was. He wasn’t simple, he was the lucidity of life layered over blooming flowers intertwined with golden thread. 

Moonwalker. I have recently come to think that the moon may know more about what it is to be human than humans ever have. And while I don’t think of him much as human, I think of him as the moon. Drawing things into his gravity only for it to crash into him and leave more imperfections. To be alone - only to be able to be seen in the reflection of my dreams. I think he’s always there in the back of my mind, but it’s at night it becomes a pecking, drilling deeper into my thoughts. 

When she left, I believe she thought that the greatest loss was her own life. What she didn’t know is the greatest loss was what died inside of me while I was still painfully alive. See death doesn’t leave time for goodbyes - it just carves holes where they use to be in your life, in your future, in your heart.

The light was beginning to cease around us, until only my burning hands against her skin remained. The clouds like soft smooth blankets of blackness crawling, glissading. 

slipping over the light side of the moon. 


	6. Behind the scenes of Maladaptive

Spoilers!

I have a friend, he’s amazing, he writes things that are beautiful and complex. Things that swept you away in the moment and left you thinking about it in bed at night months later. I never before cared much about really investing in writing, I didn’t care what I wrote I just wanted to be able to write like THAT. I don’t even tell him I write myself, I like to think I will when I think it’s worth it. Most my works where short one shots or fan fictions I was a little embarressed of. I struggled finding motivation to write or a story that truly enticed me, just basic ideas made into words thrown onto papers - just like many other stories out there, so even if maladaptive isn’t my most successful work by a long shot (in fact its thousands of hits off, one of my least popular) I take great pride in it. I wouldn’t say it is written more beautifully, or the story is much better, but it’s something I’m sticking with even if people don’t like it. 

know I won’t be the first to tell you to “write what you know, make something real” but maladaptive is real to me. I don’t live in a mental asylum or travel between realms with princes, but I have suffered depression, isolation, that’s all real. I have had days where I physically wouldn’t get out of bed and once went mute for a full year not so long ago. Aiko is real, shes my best friend. Not dead but who she is as a person and some of her real life struggles are true. I think I just admitted being in love with my best friend but that doesn’t upset me, I already did in “confessions of a writer”s first chapter. Even Shijo, the struggles with homelessness and identity. Of course this story isn’t fully true, sometimes it’s the characters that are true and the events that are made up or vice versa, sometimes things are half true or half fake. Maladaptive in my mind is a true story and that made it easier to write, because it didn’t end when I put that pen down that night or uploaded it. Don’t get me wrong, it is still hard because I hate when I don’t get an emotion right, or someone in real life doesn’t seem quite the same. But it’s okay. I’m okay. I think I found a muse, something I actually cared about writing. 

The prince in maladaptive is somebody who I made up, before he was even written into a story just as the protagonist did. He became my muse. Aiko became a story told in moments I captured in my mind when I blinked and still does. And while I know she will not be my happy ending, maybe she can give me a happy ending with a story I truly like. Now going back to that friend I told you about, an amazing writer. I’m definitely not as good as I want to be one day, but I think maybe this will finally be a story worth telling him. It’s my story.

With passion, Venus_Belfire


End file.
